Tag Archives: charles dickens

All my RL friends know that I’m not averse to a little erotica — or pornography, whatever you want to call it — and it seems that erotica is exactly what’s floating everybody’s boat in America right now. “Fifty Shades of Grey”, an erotic novel that is being described as “Mommy porn” and “Twilight for grown-ups”, has just been bought bought by Vintage Books for a reported seven-figure sum. And yes, it’s the same Vintage that gives us those literary classics with such beautiful covers. (Source)

This was all over Facebook and Twitter the past week, but in case you don’t know yet, The Guardian reports that 500 new fairytales have been discovered in an archive in Germany. You can read one of them “The Turnip Princess” over here. (Source)

Here’s another discovery for you guys. An archivist stumbles upon a 111-year-old short film that features characters from Charles Dickens’ novel “Bleak House”, making it the world’s oldest Charles Dickens film. (Source)

I’m linking to this story on the American Academy of Arts and Letters because of this great Michael Chabon quote: “I knew that when the gray came in it was only a matter of time before my augustness would be recognized.” (Source)

Movie adaptation news! Reese Witherspoon just bought the movie rights to writer Cheryl Strayed’s memoir and plans to star as Strayed in the movie adaptation. (Source)

I'm sure you guys can tell who drew this.

And just so we go full circle back to erotica, did you guys know that Theodor Seuss Geisel — or Dr. Seuss, as he’s more popularly known — wrote and illustrated a book for adults? And by adults, I mean adults? It was called “The Seven Lady Godivas: The True Facts Concerning History’s Barest Family” and it was a humongous flop. Check out the rest of the illustrations over at The Atlantic! (Source)

Conventional wisdom tells you that you should never judge a book by its cover, but what I’ve found to be true for me is that you should never judge a book on your first read. As I’ve grown up to the ripe old age of twentysomething, I’ve discovered that a lot of the books that I despised as a child ended up as being some of my favorites.

Surprisingly, a lot of the books that I did not want to read were the ones hoisted on me in high school. It’s not like I wasn’t up for a challenge — I got to about a quarter of “The Odyssey” before the end of summer vacation cut my reading short — but it was because some teachers just have a knack for taking the fun out of reading.

When before I could take my time with a book, savor the language and the world building and pretty much imagine myself in the story, I had to read these assigned books with a joyless focus, worrying about which character, utterance, or random detail would pop up in tests. If there was ever a time when I was thisclose to hating reading and books, it was during high school.

Back then, if we were given a choice to pick a book to read and be quizzed on, I would always consult with upperclassmen before making a decision. That was how I ended up picking J.D. Salinger over Edith Wharton — an overwhelming number of the seniors that I knew told me that it was the better read.